The establishment of the archaeological Museum dell 'Ancient Capua arose from the need to exhibit, through the use of modern exhibition criteria, i finds brought back into light during the excavations, carried out in the second half of the twentieth century, in the territory of Capua.

Founded by the Canon Gabriele Iannelli and inaugurated in the 1874 has been defined by Amedeo Maiuri "The most significant of the Italic civilization of the Campania".

The headquarters of the Museum it is the historian Antignano palace dating back to the ninth century.

The building boasts a magnificent and suggestive portalDurazzesque Catalan with the crests of Antignano e d'Alagno.

In the first period of theUnity of Italy the need arose to give concrete forms to the legal systems archeological ed artistic of the country and, to this end, special commissions were established, and precisely in the 1869 was formed the "Commission for the Conservation of Monuments and Objects of Antiquity and Fine Arts in the Province of Terra di Lavoro ", which noted the existence on the territory of a considerable amount of rare material archaeological ed art, at the time ill-kept and destined to a certain destruction.

The commission, in order to avoid the loss of such a huge one archaeological heritage he deliberated the foundation of a museum. The illustrious city of. Was chosen Capua as custodian of these treasures, testimonies and memories of the region and the Palace of the Princes of S. Cipriano it was the seat of the museum; the administration of Caserta provided for the financing costs for the management.

In the 1874 Museum it was opened to the public. The first director was prof. Gabriele lannelli, famous archaeologist and passionate and tenacious organizer; his work held the fate of the museum for over thirty years. Currently the museum is directed by prof. Giuseppe Centore.

In the thirties, considering the remarkable growth of the collections, it was appropriate to reorganize the museum, by prof. Amedeo Maiuri.

The variety and the vastness of the archaeological heritagehistorical artistic and the book that houses it, is a faithful reflection of the trimillenary history of a metropolis that has seen alternating Osci, Etruscans, Sannitis, Romans, Longobardi, Normans, Swabians, Anjou, Aragonese, Spagnoli.

I finds kept inside the museum, of incalculable preciousness, have been illustrated in the last centuries by famous scholars and are still today the subject of careful investigation.

In the 1943 a violent bombardment came crashing down Capua destroying it completely and the museum unfortunately the fate of many other buildings followed. Fortunately le collections contained in it had previously been secured.

A long and tiring reconstruction followed, started in 1945 and brought to an end in 1956. The works of restoration of the building through the most modern museographic criteria of the time, they allowed to make the Campania museum among the most important ofItaly ed'Europe.

The new system was edited for the medieval section by prof. Raffaello Causa and for the archaeological one from the proff. Alfonso De Franciscis e Mario Naples.

II museum it is therefore divided into two departments: one archaeological it's one medieval with an important one attached library; has 32 showrooms, 20 of deposit, three large courtyards and also a vast and suggestive garden.